


Most wanted

by jspringsteen



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Bisexual Han Solo, Hero Worship, Introspection, Lust at First Sight, M/M, Mentioned Ben Solo, Mentioned Leia Organa, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rare Pairings, The One Where Han Says 'Kid' A Lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:01:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24622855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jspringsteen/pseuds/jspringsteen
Summary: As Han struggles with PTSD, a failing marriage, and a crisis of manhood, he meets a young and ambitious slicer who makes him feel like the hero he once was. But will each of them find in the other what he's looking for?
Relationships: DJ (Star Wars) & Han Solo, DJ (Star Wars)/Han Solo, Han Solo & DJ, Han Solo/DJ
Comments: 6
Kudos: 3





	Most wanted

“Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true, / Or is it something worse?”  
Bruce Springsteen, _The River_

“Some people suffer in peace the way others suffer in war.”  
Le Ly Hayslip, _When Heaven and Earth Changed Places_

* * *

Dark or daylight, cloudy or calm—there is nothing Han loves more than the sky. And flying by night, when the skies are clear, beats everything.

He climbs into the cockpit and starts the engine. The borrowed freighter’s controls are a familiar fit by now, and he has learnt to control her finicky nature with the slightest touch. He lifts off; the lights and shapes of Chandrila begin to blur the higher he goes, and the pressure on his body increases as his speed does.

As he leaves Chandrila’s orbit and enters the darkness, he turns on the autopilot and sits back to watch a nearby comet shower. Sometimes it still feels odd to be up here, in a spacecraft, without having to be constantly thinking, planning, ready at a moment’s notice. It’s been a long time since he could do something as simple as watch stars fall, and he lets out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding.

After a few minutes, he turns the controls back on and sets his course for Corellia. Most of the old trade routes and hyperspeed lanes have been destroyed following the fall of the Empire, but he has the new route memorized by now. The stars spread out before him like a road as the vehicle hurtles through the air. The firmament surrounding him is alive: everything burns and twinkles. Outlying planets and star systems glow in the distance; the full, bright moons of Chandrila spin now above, now alongside, and now behind him. Han feels, as he always does on these trips, as if the entire galaxy has entered his bloodstream, searing his mind and suffusing him with its attributes of light and speed. In this pure space, spread for the imagination’s drive, his thoughts become a long, peaceful smudge.

It’s his fifth visit to Corellia since Ben was born; now that his son is a little older, Han’s first priority has been to get the Millennium Falcon up and running again. Despite Lando’s promise to deliver her back to Han without a scratch, the damage she sustained over three years of warfare meant it would take some time to get her back into fighting shape; years, if it was just up to him and Chewie. Luckily, an old friend from Corellia, Emil Mantgood, is a mechanic, and the only outsider he’ll trust the Falcon to; he was happy with the boost to his business, which had been dwindling ever since the end of the war. Even so, it’s going to be months before the job is done. Chewie is staying with the ship for routine maintenance (an arrangement only grudgingly accepted after a particularly nasty altercation about a missing hydrospanner that left Mantgood with two broken fingers), a job that would drive anyone who’s not familiar with their numerous modifications to the brink of madness, anyway.

The freighter he’s flying now is one Leia has loaned him from the New Republic fleet. He had the pick of any number of interstellar aircraft, yet he’d opted for a sufficiently scruffy-looking cargo ship where a few extra bumps and scratches would go unnoticed. It has become a particular pet peeve of Leia’s, these visits. Despite the respect she claims to have for the Falcon, having seen what the ship can do many times over, she fails to understand why he cannot simply leave her in the hands of other people—or just buy a new and better freighter.

They fought this afternoon, just before he took off, about the job offer he turned down. The New Republic offered him a position as an official trader, throwing in a sizeable paycheck, a top-of-the-line freighter, bonuses for overtime – the works. An honest living. Nothing for a lowly former smuggler to sneeze at, especially one with a history of working for the biggest crooks in the galaxy. And yet, something had told him to turn it down. Han Solo will not be joining his wife in the ranks of the new regime.

“I’m used to working freelance,” he’d said, evasively, watching Leia’s hopeful expression morph into confusion. “It’s me, Chewie and the Falcon, or nothing.”

“Freelance? You call wheeling and dealing like you did in the past ‘working freelance’?”

“I can think of a few times when that experience came in pretty handy for us, sweetheart,” he’d shot back. “When you were imprisoned, for example. Besides, I seem to recall you breaking a few of your precious convictions yourself when you came to my rescue, so if you _really_ wanna play the morality card…”

But it wasn’t just the nature of the job he didn’t like. Three years ago, when the contours of the new galactic order were starting to take shape, an uncomfortable feeling had already crept over him. The leaders of the former Rebel Alliance began yielding their platforms to more pragmatic and less idealistic clerks, technicians, scientists and politicians—most of whom were former Imperial staff who’d simply done an about-face by publicly renouncing their ties to the old regime. The Republic was keen to absorb any and all technical and scientific knowledge hoarded by the Empire, and grateful for its former employees’ expertise in running, well, an entire galaxy. The swiftness of these changes concerned Han. It was troubling that you could no longer tell who had been for and against the Empire just a few years ago, and he found himself becoming suspicious of any shopkeeper, street sweeper or bar patron he encountered. He still woke up some nights in a panic, the darkness walling in on him like it did when he was in the carbonite, and unable to stop shivering no matter how many blankets he piled on.

Leia had called him pigheaded and sentimental, the way he went on about “that piece of junk”; when that didn’t faze him, she’d taken a more practical stance and mentioned the costs of having a child, and the importance of steady work in creating a stable environment for a child to grow up in. And, she’d added, in what she must have thought of as a sly manner, it would scrub his record pristine. No more official proof that he had once had a bounty on his head, or worked for Jabba, or even of his stint as an Imperial pilot. “You know I don’t really care about your past,” she’d said, in that offhand manner she had, “but _somebody_ might. And our child will grow up with the knowledge that his dad’s always been an _honest man_.” She’d smiled at him sweetly, as if she truly had his best interests at heart, but he knew better. Leia Organa was determined to rise through the ranks, and a husband with an incriminating past was one skeleton she was keen to sweep out of her closet. Having a Jedi knight for a brother eclipsed much, but not all.

“And I’m sure you can negotiate about your hours, your clients, stuff like that. But to cut a deal, you’ll still have to pledge allegiance.”

“Unless you also wipe the memories of everyone I’ve ever worked with,” Han shot back, “that’s not gonna help any. I start working for the Republic, I may as well go out with a target painted on my back. You know there are former Empire warlords forming militias on the edges of the galaxy. If I were you, I’d be more careful. I don’t doubt for a second that there’s anyone who wants to avenge what happened to Jabba the Hutt.”

Leia had laughed. “Oh, come on. You’re being paranoid. I doubt anybody wants to put a lightsaber in my guts for killing that slug.”

She was probably right. But she didn’t know what kinds of deals he’d had to make before the war, and who might come calling unexpectedly. And that they might go after her, or after Ben, to get to him.

He’d sighed and run a hand through his hair.

“If I cut a deal, then… then Ben grows up with a liar for a father.”

“You don’t have to lie to him. He’ll know you made a hard choice. That you righted a wrong.”

“Righted a wrong! I don’t see how I was in the wrong, Your Righteousness. I was making a living, that was all.” There was something else, another reason for his refusal; but he had to find the right words for it. With Leia, you had to think through your argument before you gave it, or you’d find yourself in a corner before you could say Midichloridian.

“I just need some more time,” he’d said, eventually. “I’m only trying to make some sense of—of everything! Of the war, this new era, of how we ended up here, of how to move forward.”

Leia had stared at him, her face sympathetic, but her voice was all reason when she said, “I get it. We’ve both been through a lot. You were frozen in carbonite; I was Jabba’s slave. We’ve been captured, tortured… I can’t even count how many times we’ve had a narrow escape. But onward and upward, you know? It’s a new dawn. A new era. The past is the past.”

 _But it isn’t_ , he’d wanted to say. _It can’t be, when there’s the same people running the show._ Besides, the past was always crowding in on his present, reminding him of what he used to do in situations like these; what has always been his surefire answer to life’s problems; what he does best. When things get too heavy, ditch the load and lift off. Fly away. You can’t catch a laser blast, and you can’t hit a moving target.

They’d had it out then, Han shouting that he wouldn’t trust the Republic to run him a bath, let alone the galaxy; Leia shouting back that he might as well admit that he’d always doubted her skills, had never had any faith in her, and why was he always so suspicious? Then a thought had fought its way to his tongue that had been lurking at the back of his mind for months, and, feeling reckless, he’d let it out.

“If you loved me, you’d let me go wherever, whenever I liked.”

She had given him a look that reminded him of the icy deserts of Hoth. The fight was over, Han knew it, but he wasn’t sure who had won. He wasn’t even sure there was anything to be gained by winning.

“I do love you, Han,” Leia had said, far too calmly. “You are my family. _We_ are a family. And I’m sorry if that isn’t good enough for you. I’m sorry that doesn’t make you want to stay.”

She had left for work, closing the door behind her with an assertiveness that reminded him of who she was, and what she was capable of.

Han winces at the memory. He’s not angry at Leia – he loves her too much for that, and besides, she’s right. It’s not her fault that he’s been hooked on adrenaline since he was ten years old—at times he’s thought he could live off it, more satisfying than food and sleep and the sky combined. Give him that, and he can handle all the responsibility you could load on his shoulders, even if he blows it on occasion.

But for Leia, having had her fill of it during the war, it’s hard to understand the running in him; she pulls the door shut behind her in the morning with the certainty of being able to put her leadership, her rational mind, her knowledge of star systems far beyond this one to good use. She hadn’t minded as long as it took the form of the long stories he told Ben just after his birth, standing in front of the window for hours and rocking him side to side, pointing at the constellations in the sky and telling him about all that lay beyond there. But she had been quick on the uptake, Han knew, that nothing, not even their baby, could keep him confined to one planet for long. Unfortunately, her method has been to coax and wheedle and guilt-trip him into staying with her, so much so that he feels he cannot simply sit her down and tell her the truth: that he’s afraid. And for her to forgive him for it.

The war gave him the ultimate commandment: to take care of his own and lay down his life for his friends—his family, for lack of a real one. But the war is over, and this family _has_ become his real one. And every time he looks into the boy’s big brown eyes, all he sees is a present he can take no comfort in; a future with harsh limits; and a past he’s expected to erase, even as he’s struggling to come to terms with it. A new social structure that beckons to him, promising a life of security and comfort if he would just embrace its illusions and lies.

 _It’s not Leia and Ben I want to get away from,_ he reasons with himself. _It’s not that I don’t care about them, but it’s taking care of them that scares me. I don’t trust myself to. Because I’m no good at it. Hasn’t she told me so many times?_ He knows a father is pardoned if he shirks his duties; perhaps he shouldn’t feel as badly about it as he does. But he’s grown a conscience during his time as a Rebel, and sometimes he wants nothing more than to cut it out.

“Now approaching Corellia,” the cool voice of his board computer tells him.

For the moment, the fight in him briefly gives way to the peace of the galaxy with its dust of stars, even as the relief he feels scares him. The rush of air over his skin whenever he lifts off makes him feel like he’s dropping back into himself; the constellations are as familiar a home as he’s ever had, and at moments like these, he is in love with the whole galaxy, every last particle of it. But the more often he escapes, the more inescapable the truth of what he’s doing becomes. He can’t stop imagining other worlds, other loves, other places than the one he is comfortably settled in, the one holding all his treasures—treasures that so easily lose their shine in the vast, open and barren spaces of his mind. And most of all, he can’t stop imagining that world he feels nostalgic for, the place where he aches to go again, the one where he is loved, and the future is still a long time coming, and he feels like he is that good and honest man that Leia wants him to be.

Han stares at his home planet as it grows bigger and bigger.

 _I could go,_ he thinks. _I could just go. Fly past Corellia, to the outer reaches of the galaxy. Hide out on some junkyard planet. Start a new life._

* * *

_The doors of the hold open with a swishing sound. His boots hit the ground. Dust billows._

_He stands swaying on his feet._ _Sixteen hours on the dirty floor of a freighter, crammed between two crates with only a small slit through which light and recycled oxygen poured in from the cockpit. He coughs. The air here is oily and dusty at the same time. He’ll get used to it. You can get used to anything._

_He shoulders his bag and sneaks off into a side street before anyone notices him. He checks his reflection in a window. Wipes the crush of dirt and sand from his shoulders. Sweats in his leather coat. It’s hot here, like standing close to a forge; a steel-pounding heat. But there is activity. Life. Industry. A world away from his own backwater._

_He wanders through graffitied alleys, past metal workshops and shops selling every conceivable type of nut and bolt. Trickles of daylight pierce the low-hanging smoke from workshops and kitchens. His stomach grumbles, and he begins to look out for a place where he can eat. At the end of the alley, he spots an old woman serving food from out of a cart. He gives her his last credits for a plate of stew and a hunk of bread._

_“You happen to know anyone who n-n-needs a code breaker?” he asks her. She stares at him, then goes inside as if she hasn’t heard him. He waits for a while, but when she doesn’t return, he shrugs, and eats his stew in silence. Couldn’t hurt to try. He’ll start his search in honest once he’s got a full stomach._

_But when he’s emptied his plate, an old man emerges, wiping his hands, black with grease, on a towel._

_“My wife tells me you’re a code breaker,” he says._

_He nods, eagerly. “That’s me, sir.”_

_The man looks him up and down. “Little young, ain’t ya? What’s your name?”_

_“Jarrbul, sir. Darisco Jarrbul. I got ten years of experience, sir, I used to scramble Imperial vehicles for the Rebels on S-S-… on S-Selto-Chime, my home planet.”_

_The suspicion on the old man’s face gives way to wonder. “Did you now? How old are you?”_

_“Twenty. Except… I won’t really be twenty until next month, so, I guess I’m nineteen.”_

_The man looks him up and down, then throws the towel over his shoulder and crosses his arms. He smiles wryly._

_“You feel older than that, though, don’t you?”_

_DJ grins involuntarily. “Yes sir, I do. I was too y-young to join the war, but I figured this way I could be useful, at least.”_

_Silence while the man chews on his bottom lip and squints at him. He appears to come to a decision._

_“Don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of the Millennium Falcon?”_

_*_

_“Nobody knows she’s here,” Emil says as he leads DJ to the hangar. “Captain Solo trusts her with nobody else but me.” He says it proudly._

_“What’s he up to these days?” asks DJ. He’s digging his nails into the palms of his hands to keep a neutral expression on his face._

_Emil shrugs. “Not sure. I think he’s flying for the Republic now, as a trader.” DJ frowns, thinking of the smirking face on the holos. WANTED: SMUGGLER, PILOT, REBEL SCUM. He imagines the roguish, handsome face framed by a Republic cap and uniform. It doesn’t seem to fit._

_“Can’t offer you much,” Emil explains. “I’m on a pretty tight budget.”_

_“I’ll take it,” DJ says quickly, “if I can s-s-sleep here for the time being. I don’t have any credits left to rent a room.”_

_Emil frowns. “Guess that’d be alright. I’ll put a mattress down in the back room.”_

_And so it happens that an amateur code breaker from the mines of Selto-Chime is put to work on the Millennium Falcon’s deflector shields. The job itself is a cinch, and DJ takes his sweet time about it, stretching a three-day job into a week, then two, fooling the old man into thinking there’s a lot more that needs doing than there actually is._ _The Millennium Falcon! Some moments he wishes he had someone he could tell about his good fortune._

_He makes just enough progress every day to satisfy the old man, then waits until he has left the ship before sneaking out to roam around on the Falcon. He lies down on the bed and stares at the same ceiling that Han Solo has looked at during the biggest battles of the war, planning his next masterstroke against the Empire. He rifles through drawers and compartments, hoping to find some left-behind personal items, but all he finds is a set of sabacc cards, which he treasures for their scuffs and stains—the result, he imagines, of having travelled around in Han’s pocket since he was a young man. He sits in the passenger seat in the cockpit, pretending to be Han’s co-pilot, practicing the jump to lightspeed._

_As his second week in the workshop begins, the thought occurs to DJ that he may never have to leave. He could stay on as Mantgood’s right-hand mechanic—that is, until the inevitable day comes when Han Solo himself will come in to inspect his handiwork, and be so impressed that he’ll want to take him on as his on-board code breaker and co-pilot. With DJ scrambling the ships and Han shifting the goods, there’s no doubt in his mind that they’d make a great team. Together, they’d be a force to be reckoned with. He’d go everywhere with Han—bars, ports, factories on distant planets in star systems he’s never heard of, meeting people from every rung of the ladder. Han would entertain them both by pointing out their similarities and likenesses, and he would certainly never tire of telling DJ how he is destined for great things. And though the whole galaxy would be abuzz with rumours of a code-breaking wunderkind, DJ would stay humble, passing up no opportunity to express his gratitude to his patron for taking a chance on a nobody like him. “I recognized his potential right away,” Han would say when asked for comment. “His is a rags-to-riches story, just like mine. The New Republic is glad to have him.” Han would ask him to co-found a foundation for war orphans, earning them the title of Heroes of the New Republic. They’d ask him to give interviews, speeches. His stutter would miraculously disappear one day, as if it had realized it didn’t suit this new DJ any more, and left of its own accord. And when asked what ‘DJ’ stood for, he’d reply: “Dreaming Junkrat”, and it would always get a laugh. It would show how DJ never forgot his humble beginnings; how even when he was in the gutter, he was looking at the stars._

_One day, he’s shocked out of his reverie by the roar he’s heard a hundred times on his data tapes. Chewbacca. Han Solo’s actual right hand. He runs towards the entrance, keen to make the Wookiee’s acquaintance, but he’s stopped in his tracks by the sight of Chewbacca holding a hydrospanner as if ready to deal a blow with it, and Mantgood standing before him, glowering up at him and cradling a wounded hand. He turns when he hears DJ approach, looking relieved._

_“Oh, good. DJ, this is Chewbacca. He’s, uh, gonna be doing some of his own repairs on the Falcon.” Mantgood winces as Chewbacca roars behind him. “Best not to disturb him.”_

_And that’s that. It puts an end to his explorations, and DJ is forced to give his full attention to the three deflector shield generators. But at night, in bed, he replays his fantasy of the day, altering it as he pleases. And when sleep’s slow in coming, he slips his hand down his trousers and imagines even more: how on their missions together, Han starts confiding in him, things he wouldn’t even tell his wife; how he takes to touching his shoulder or his hand while they talk; and how one drunken night, Han admits his true feelings for him, and one thing leads to another. How they become lovers, forever travelling the length and breadth of the galaxy together, and nobody any the wiser._

_Well, he thinks, as the waves of pleasure bear him off to the land of sleep, a boy can dream._

* * *

He wants to say Coronet City hasn’t changed in all the years he’s been away, but he’d be lying—it is even louder, dirtier and more difficult to breathe here than he remembers. Wherever he goes, the steady chug of engines, the hiss of welders and the clang of steel on steel surround him, and he feels the dust and grime seeping into his pores. Before a fluorescent sunset, towering cranes and rigs genuflect to silhouetted scaffolds and hangars. No people should be indigenous to such a furnace, and yet, beneath this grotesque shadow play is a glut of life: workers scurrying to and fro, transporting materials, working to construct vehicles a thousand times their size, selling food out of portable stoves that belch enough smoke to rival the factories they’re parked in front of. Han stands looking up at the acidic yellow sky, slashed with orange and green and muted by the pall of smog that permeates every inch of the planet, covering the lower levels in an eternal smoky twilight. The sunset is all-encompassing; and even though he’s watched numerous suns set in numerous star systems, this one soothes him in a way that surprises him. Nostalgia has a funny way of tying you even to places you were once desperate to get away from, and Han, he realizes with a wry smile, will always be welded to Coronet City.

“Young Han!” Emil greets him warmly as he wanders into the workshop. Smiling, Han shakes his hand. The man’s skin looks like the Bantha-leather gloves he’s wearing, having just put down his welding tools. Like most Corellians, he’s missing some digits, as well as an eye. Small sacrifices for the birth of the metal behemoths Corellia is famous for, or, as he used to imagine when he was younger, made in perverse blood rituals, strengthening the links between humans and machines until one day you wouldn’t be able to tell one from the other. As always, upon seeing Emil, Han remembers with a feeling of melancholy that his father would have been the same age by now.

He remembers the day he brought the Falcon in; Emil had pursed his lips at the rickety landing gear. His eyes grew wide, however, when Han led him inside and pointed out the sensor-proof smuggling compartments and his modified shields and guns. When Han finished explaining what he’d done to the hyperdrive, Emil had let out a low whistle.

“Good grief, son. Thought it was just Rebel propaganda, all that ‘fastest ship in the galaxy’ stuff. You done all this yourself, what d’you need me for?”

“She could use a good check-up,” Han explained. “She’s been through the wringer. I’d appreciate it if you could have someone look at the deflector shields, too. They need to be updated. You think those TIE-fighters were too small to do any real damage, well, think again.”

“How’s business, Emil?” he asks him now.

“Can’t complain.” Emil spreads his hands. “Happy to be in business at all, tell you the truth. Only the scrapyards are still thriving, they’re melting down the whole Imperial fleet to make freighters, investment in the interstellar trade.”

Han pictures it: the whole Empire reduced to a rusting heap of iron skeletons, slowly being digested by the New Republic. Maggots thriving on a dead carcass.

“I’m already hearing folks grumbling about the new government. You know if unrest starts up anywhere it’s where people have their jobs taken away.”

Han nods. “No new weapons being built, huh?”

“Ah, don’t get me started.” Emil waves his hand. “Took us all of two years to patch up the ships they used in the civil war, and that was it. Pacifist sissies think if they ain’t got no weapons nobody’ll attack ‘em. They’ll be sorry, mark my words. Say…” He puts his hand on Han’s shoulder. “Shouldn’t talk like that—wash my mouth with Ewok soap. Ain’t you married to that whatsername… Leia? Princess?”

“Captain,” Han says, not without a flourish of pride. “Captain Leia Organa. Yes, we’re married. Got a son, too. He’s about three now.”

“Han Solo with a kid… to think I’d live to see the day.” Emil shakes his head. “Come on. Take you to the Falcon.”

“How’s she doing?” Han asks him as they walk into the hangar. He feels a surge of affection and pride for his ship, even seeing in her sorry, half-dismantled state. Emil begins to list all the things he’s improved since Han’s last visit.

“…and now I got this new kid, just hired him, real prodigy, workin’ on your deflector shield. Think he’s in there now.” Emil stops at the foot of the ramp.

“Ah, that reminds me. Just got the new motivator in for your power core; old one was blown all to hell. Let me check in the back, and I’ll show you.”

Emil leaves him, and Han steps up the ramp. Fondly, he lays his hand on the entrance doorframe, then wanders towards the hyperdrive generator, where absent-minded grunts and the wet-fur smell of Chewbacca alert him to his copilot’s presence.

“Hello, you old fuzzball. How’s it going?”

Chewie spins around, roars, and clamps his arms tightly around him, grinding his lungs together. Han, slowly turning purple, taps him on the shoulder, and gratefully takes a gulp of air when Chewie releases him.

“Alright, alright, that’ll do. Whatcha workin’ on?”

The hyperdrive, Chewie explains. Once the new motivator is installed, there’ll be less chance of sudden energy fluxes triggering the fuel distributor. This way, the ship’ll lose a lot less fuel on the way. Han nods, approving. “Good—that means we can bring less juice from now on. More room for stock.”

Chewbacca grunts in agreement.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it. See you in a minute.”

He wanders through the main corridor towards the cockpit. As he approaches it, the sound of someone whistling becomes gradually louder, overlaid by a metallic voice saying “Reprogrammming” repeatedly. He rounds the corner and almost trips over two long, skinny legs. He follows them up to the torso they’re attached to, which is half-obscured by one of the shield generators. Its owner is whistling a tune that Han recognizes as one of the Rebel songs, the one they sang on long flights, each verse ridiculing one of the leaders of the Empire. _And if you ever panic / Just think of Orson Krennic / At least you won’t get killed / By a weapon that you built…_

The whistling stops, a screwdriver clatters on the floor, and the two legs retract hastily. A young man with a shock of dark hair scrambles hastily to his feet, and two green eyes look him up and down, disbelieving.

“Han S-S-Solo!” he says. Han looks the kid up and down. He’s scrawny, but trim, with a long neck and hooded eyes. There was something about the way his eyes glittered when he looked up that reminded Han of the cold gleam of metal, but it’s given way now to an almost childlike sparkle.

Somewhat stunned at what seems to be a vision of his younger self, he extends his hand.

“The one and only. Who are you?”

“I’m DJ,” the kid says. After shaking Han’s hand he jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “Mr Mantgood put me to work on your d-d-deflector shields.”

“Ah, I see. How’s it going?”

“I gotta tell you—it’s an honour to work on the Millenium Falcon,” DJ says, earnestly. “I mean, it made the Kessel run in less than thirteen parsecs!”

Han has to smile at that.

“She sure did,” he replies, affectionately patting one of the wall panels. “I didn’t think anybody remembered that.” It’s true; though _he_ ’s made a point of laying low since the Rebels’ victory, what he minds more is that the Falcon, in his eyes, never really got her due. “Nobody remembers the Kessel run now, Han,” Leia once said, rolling her eyes.

“I do,” the boy says, his eyes wide and earnest. “You all made me want to join up. I was just waiting for my application to go through when the war ended. I figured I should put my qualities to good use, though, so I extracted d-d-data from Imperial ships for the Rebels for a while. But I never did get to fight.”

He slides down the wall he’s leaning against until he’s sitting on the floor, and draws his knees up to his chest.

Han looks down at him. Something tugs in his chest at the sight of the bright-faced boy, whose deceptively lazy-looking eyes follow every move he makes.

“Well. Probably for the best, kid.”

DJ opens his mouth to reply, but Han turns away from him to examine the shield generator.

“So, what’s going on here?”

DJ begins to talk quickly, illustrating his actions with his long fingers, occasionally tripping up over a word. “I just sliced into the security system to make room for modifications. I wanna upgrade the ray shields to a ray-particle combination; that way she’ll be able to deflect not just energy but all high-velocity projectiles and high-intensity beams, including from proton weapons. She won’t be fully immune from s-s-pace debris, but…” Han looks over his shoulder; DJ grins at him with glittering eyes. “…a s-s… s-skilled pilot like you should be able to avoid that stuff in the first place, right?”

He sounds a little out of breath, as if he’s just finished doing all of this in under a minute. Han looks at him with renewed interest.

“You’re a slicer? At your age, that’s quite something.”

DJ shrugs, feigning modesty.

“Started young. I lived on the streets as a kid. S-started tinkering with some old ships lying around, you know.”

“Sounds like my story,” Han says; for the first time in years, he thinks of Qi’ra, with a feeling of nostalgia. DJ looks up at him, eagerly. “Really?”

“Really.” Han leans in closer to the generator to inspect the light core, thinking that the heat it generates doesn’t scorch his cheeks half as much as the feeling of DJ’s eyes trained on his backside. He straightens up.

“Good work, kid. When do you think she’ll be ready?”

“Oh, I don’t know how long Mr Mantgood will be busy. But I should be finished in around four d-d-days or so.” From his seated position, DJ looks up at him, his head lolling back against the wall. Han finds his eyes lingering on the sharp jut of his larynx.

“Great,” he says, forcing himself to sound business-like. “I’ll be back to take a look tomorrow morning.” He turns around and steps out. “See you tomorrow, then,” he hears DJ say, but he pretends not to.

The kid’s starry-eyed, just like he was at that age. Volatile, but naïve. Sporting the inevitable bruises and callouses from a life on the streets. Probably told from the moment he could listen that he was owed something big, and has been denied it ever since. Still living in a world of childish dreams, too young to be conscious of the peripheries and borderlines of bleak immensities, the burning out of the energies of men of steel. It makes him feel oddly sentimental.

Another feeling crowds in on his reverie; startled, he realizes that it’s want. It’s been so long since he’s been with a man, long before the war, but now, he feels the old flame of desire burn in his chest. He thinks about kissing his way down that long neck, resting his head between those sharp collar bones, revelling in the feeling of exploring an unknown body, all hard angles and soft skin. Letting those long fingers crack open his shell and consume him. Someone who believes he is still Han Solo, Rebel hero, rather than who he is right now… whoever that is.

He shakes his head. _Snap out of it, Solo._

Coming down the ramp, he sees Emil, carrying the new motivator.

“Emil, did you okay this upgrade to a ray-particle combo?”

“Of course. It’s standard-issue on the newest ships, even the freighters. Most of the ships in the war had shields even TIE-fighters could penetrate—”

“Uh huh,” Han says, thinking, _which I just told you a minute ago._

“—so we’re incorporating all this new intel. Every time they take a TIE-fighter apart they send us their board computers—”

Emil’s off, prattling away; Han forces himself to pay attention, but can’t help but dart a glance at the entrance hatch. What looks like a dark head of hair quickly withdraws from view.

“That kid…” he says, interrupting the mechanic. “He Corellian?”

Emil shakes his head. “Selto-Chime. They turned his entire planet into a mine when the war began. Just arrived here, looking for work. Wanted to join the Rebellion, too. His application had just gone through. Then the war ended.”

“Yeah, he told me that story. You think he’s trustworthy enough to work on my security systems?”

Emil shrugs. “Check out his work yourself when he’s done, and tell me. All I know is a good code breaker is hard to find. And he’s doing it practically for nothing, just to get the chance to work on the Falcon, he said.”

Han’s eyes are drawn back to the entrance hatch.

“How long did you say you were staying, Han?” he hears Emil ask.

“Going back tomorrow.” He turns back to the mechanic and shakes his hand.

“A pleasure, as always. I’ll be back in the morning.”

“See ya.”

* * *

_He quickly retracts his head when he sees Han look at him. Heart pounding, he leans back against the wall. He closes his eyes and replays their exchange over and over again in his head._ Han Solo, in the flesh, and even more handsome and charismatic than I could’ve imagined. Told me he was impressed by my age and skills, and even said we had similar childhoods. We could’ve talked shop for hours. I could learn so much from him, and he, he’d be even more impressed if he found out how much I know already…

I can’t believe it. And if this part has already come true, then maybe… why not? _His pulse speeds up as he imagines the possibilities, feeling himself grow hot._ I could tell he was interested; his pupils were dilated, and he wouldn’t look me in the eye the whole time. _He grins._ People aren’t that different from computers, really. Everyone’s got a combination, and I’m gonna crack his. It’s just a question of putting in the time.

I’ll tell Emil I’m finished for the day, and then I’ll follow him.

 _He slips out as soon as he can. Thankfully the road leading to the workshop is long and straight, without any side streets, so that he spots Han at the very end of it, turning into an alley. He follows him past the animals fighting over garbage and the figures leaning out of shadowy doorways, offering their goods, themselves and others to him in sultry voices._ Opportunism _, he thinks._ Self-sufficiency. I knew this’d be the planet for me. I’m destined for great things, I am.

 _He watches as Han enters a bar, and checks his chronometer. Gives it ten minutes. Takes a walk around the block, then another. He runs a hand through his oily hair, sniffs his sweaty shirt, and winces. He checks out his appearance in a nearby window._ Scruffy-looking, _he thinks._ No other word for it.

I have a feeling it won’t bother him, though.

* * *

When he leaves the workshop, the sky is bruised and purple with clouds. With relief, he notices that with every step he takes away from the workshop, his want is diminishing; if it doesn’t go away of its own accord, he’ll will it to. Of all the things you might call him—liar, thief, scoundrel—cheat isn’t one of them; in cards, business, nor love. With a twinge of embarrassment, he recalls the intensity of what he felt just moments ago, his desire for the code breaker overriding his brain until he was certain it was seeping out through the cracks of his body and beaming out of his eyes; what an odd thing, to stand there in the same room and have to pretend everything is normal, like you aren’t straining against your very boundaries to keep yourself in check.

He stumbles on into an alley full of people dealing in nightly excitement and vice. The air stinks of oil, sex, and the sweet rot of garbage spilling out from overturned bins, the happy hunting grounds of rats and kowakians. Walking past the seducers leaning out from their shacks, a fact struggles to escape him, one he has felt for a long time but has never been able to formulate. Corellia is a planet of _need_ , and its people implicated in a democratic desire to keep the forges burning. Moving to a mechanized rhythm, less alive than droids, they’re kept in a half-life by the factories that have slowly taken away their sight, their hearing, and their free will over the years—and alleys like these are the only recourse they have to feel the slightest bit alive. Corellia’s merciless appetite for resources is matched only by its endless capacity for churning out ships, weapons, and obedient workers, generation after generation. Hunger everywhere, and the only food is the myth of a gratification that never comes. Han feels he might choke on it if he stays here much longer; yet it’s in his blood, too, this habit of playing the long game, patiently fitting bit by bit together until, months later, you find you’ve built something enormous, something you feel you can’t be held accountable for, seeing how you were a different person when you started out.

He passes a bar, and the flurries of conversation and music drifting outside give him pause. After the constant assault of bangs and clangs on his ears today, the sound of music and voices – even drunken ones – is a balm. He steps inside.

It’s not one of the working-man’s bars his father used to go to, with their grease-slick interiors, nor one of the dive-bars of questionable repute that he used to sneak into when he was with the White Worms, full of heavily perfumed creatures that loved to squeeze his cheeks with their claws. As far as he can tell, the clientele is mostly humanoid and the music is soft enough to be ignored—so far, so good. Of course, there may be any number of former Imperial employees or sympathizers who have seen his mug grace the ‘most wanted’ holos in the past, but tonight, he’s feeling confident. He’ll take the risk.

He finds a quiet corner and melts into the evening, sipping a beer and observing the other patrons. He wonders if the streets of Corellia are still ruled by gangs. It wouldn’t surprise him. Children on Corellia will always be made to choose between becoming a cog in the machine or fleeing to the underworld. Or, of course, escaping altogether. Like he did. Except it sure doesn’t feel like it. Why else does he keep coming back here, time after time? Why else does he still feel like something’s holding him back from making the transition, the commitment, to life with Leia and Ben, and like he’s living on borrowed time?

Ben’s father is Han Solo, Rebel hero, the fastest pilot in the galaxy, who has faced the _horror vacui_ of the lawless galactic frontier time and again. But his father is also a coward, who now finds himself on the threshold of a new, dark, oppressive world, one that takes as much as it provides, and trembles in the face of it. And without a co-pilot, too. Though Leia labours tirelessly to bring a sense of unity to the post-Empire galaxy, it’s become clear to him that she cannot do the same for her own family. Whenever he has tried to broach the subject, it seems to him she cradles Ben that much closer, as if daring him to accuse her of being a bad mother so that she, in turn, can then accuse him of being a bad father. These kinds of little, individual rebellions are the mark of the low-intensity warfare being waged between them.

He tries not to follow the tunnel of thought that opens up before him like a sarlacc’s maw—that perhaps a crisis, or another war, would cure them, and push away the tiny problems that are damaging them like splinters. A crisis that would reiterate the importance of life and of reaping happily from it what you can, while you can. Something that would force them to leave their life as it is and start over somewhere new.

 _Be careful what you wish for, Han. “_ I don’t mean this,” he tells himself. “These thoughts aren’t real.” But the alcohol has loosened his restraint, and he can’t keep them from bubbling up inside him. What if something happened to just one of them that would weld the three of them together again? Something they could survive; a quick pain to readjust the balances of want. Desperately, he wonders if an attack on himself would bring cohesion—make them realise what they could lose. An illness, or an attack, or an accident. Or—he thinks of DJ, with a surge of desire—an affair…

But underneath, he understands that if he thinks these things, it means there’s no strength left. Strength lies in accepting the commitment to the responsibilities of family life, and only if a tragedy occurred would he know if there was any left at all. Han closes his eyes briefly, anger and irritation flaring up within him. How can he be wishing for illness, or mortal danger? A voice in his head says: this is the simple cowardice that breaks us all, eventually. When you start thinking of every other way to change a thing other than facing it head-on.

Qi’ra taught him that love, like all other things, is currency: love something too much and it becomes a bargaining chip for others, and sooner or later it will crumble in your hands when you try to hold on to it too tightly. He’d hoped it’d be different with Leia; Leia, good, kind-hearted, smart, strong Leia, who had shown him that there is strength in attachment, in kindness, in vulnerability, and the necessity of trust. But she’s let him down, too. She saddled him with a responsibility he didn’t know how to handle, tied him to a place he wasn’t sure he wanted to be, and he went along with it because they were both cocky enough to believe that this new vision of familial bliss would fit them perfectly. They’d just saved the galaxy together—how could their strength as a team, their trust in each other, and their belief in a future together not last?

What had made him fall for her was how she always believed there was a better man hidden deep down inside of him, and encouraged him to be that version of himself. But here, back in Coronet City, he’s finally come to realize that her best version of him isn’t one he will ever live up to, just as it’s beginning to dawn on him that the future they’ve been preparing for may not even exist. And for his part, he wishes Leia were different, too. That she would laugh more and judge less, or walk around in the sun without purpose, or simply love him back—accept who he is, not who he ought to be. The idea of forty more years with her… _We live too long,_ he thinks. _We’re expected to love too much and too long_.

But he shouldn’t be like this. He can’t let the darkness overtake him, this ever-hungry and massive cloud of not caring any more and wanting to run. This is the enemy that must be fought until the end.

Han looks around the bar. It was a place just like this where it all started, on Tatooine, where he’d seen Luke’s young, bright, innocent face and had made what had seemed to him then like a mistake: getting caught up in the big scheme, throwing himself into the machinations of fate. He’d gotten his fingers burned that way once, when he became an Imperial pilot; he’d been cautious ever since of doing it again. And yet, something had compelled him to do it… was it idealism? _No_ , he reflects wryly. _It was money. And then, Leia. And then…_

He’s still lost in thought when he looks up and catches the eye of a patron sitting at the very end of the bar. His long leather coat dangles over the back of his chair. When he smiles, like the slash of a knife, Han recognizes him. It’s DJ. His heart starts to pound, and his first impulse is to look away and pretend he hasn’t seen him. He’s not in the mood for a minute-by-minute retelling of the Battle of Endor, or for deflating every myth about himself that’s become more distorted the further the star system it reaches.

Most of all, he’s afraid he won’t be able to control himself.

Han ignores him for as long as he deems acceptable, then casually looks up again. DJ promptly waves at him. Reluctantly, Han flicks his fingers upward in what barely qualifies as a salute. He watches as DJ hops off his stool and comes sauntering over. The eagerness from before seems gone; he has adopted a languid stride, perhaps from the green liquid in the bottle he’s just set down on the table. He leans on the far end of it, and Han looks up at him. He feels his cheeks heat under the boy’s stare.

“Hey, kid.” It comes out more strained than he’d like. “Sit down.”

DJ seats himself opposite Han, plaits his fingers and lays his hands on the table.

“Fancy seeing you here.” His green eyes are magnetic, and Han tries to look just above them, at the kid’s hairline.

“Make any progress with the shields?” he asks.

DJ nods. “Some. And, uh, I removed the tracker. I know all ships are required to have one from now on but…” He smiles conspiratorially. “I figured y-y-you’d take it out whenever you had the chance, yourself.”

Han is surprised, and a little alarmed. “How’d you figure that?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised at what I got stored away. I’m an authority on Han Solo,” says the kid. It should make him feel uneasy, and it does, but Han can’t stop himself from smiling with some of his old cockiness at his admirer’s words.

“Are you?”

“Oh yeah. It’s been the pleasure of my life working on the Falcon… I’ve gotten fairly intimate with her, you might say.” DJ pauses for a fraught moment to sip his drink, drawing Han’s eyes to his mouth, then says, “You’ve made quite a few modifications y-y-yourself, I noticed.”

Han nods, relieved to be changing the subject. “Had to. Those star destroyers were throwing stuff at us I’d never seen before. I had to improvise.”

“Like what?”

And before he’s aware of it, he’s recounting the battle of Yavin to DJ. The boy listens, his eyes gleaming in the low light, his lips frozen in an admiring smile, broken up only to chuckle at Han’s jokes.

“So, _really,_ you’re the reason Luke Skywalker was able to destroy the Death Star as quickly as he did.”

“Well. I don’t want to take credit for Luke’s…” Han trails off, hides his flushed face in his drink. Privately, he _does_ think it was mainly because of him, but who knows how it might have played out if he hadn’t returned? “That was the moment I knew you were a good man,” Leia had once purred. _That was when I knew I could never resist an opportunity to be in the thick of it, playing the hero,_ he thinks now.

“I mean it,” DJ goes on. “Seems all you ever hear is Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia...”

“You knew who I was, though,” Han points out.

DJ smiles big. “Like I said, I’m a fan. I can’t believe I came here last week looking for work, just any odd job, to get away from S-S-Selto. And here it is, a week later, I’ve already worked on the most famous ship in the galaxy, and I’m sitting in a bar chatting with none other than Han Solo.”

“Yeah, it’s a wonderful world,” Han says, sounding sarcastic but feeling secretly pleased.

He notices with relief that his glass is empty, and stands up to get them another round. When he comes back, DJ has taken out a pack of cards.

“You wanna play?” DJ asks as Han sets down their drinks.

Han grins at him. “Sabacc? You sure, kid? That’s how I won the Falcon, you know.”

DJ shrugs, smiles. “I don’t have much to lose, anyhow. The most expensive thing I own is this coat.”

 _And wouldn’t it be a shame if I got you out of it,_ Han thinks to himself.

“Alright, if you’re sure. I usually play Corellian Spikes, but we can play regular.” He fishes around in his pockets for credits, comes up with a handful, and tosses them on the table. DJ raises his eyebrows.

“The galaxy’s most wanted s-s-smuggler, and that’s all you’re betting?”

Han laughs. “What can I say, kid. Black market’s been a little slow lately.” DJ’s long fingers move to his throat, and he tugs a necklace out from under his shirt, which has a number of differently sized keys hanging from it. He selects one of the bigger ones, unclasps it, and lays it down next to the credits. Han picks it up and turns it over, intrigued. He looks questioningly at DJ.

“An old K-39. Getting a little too smooth—d-d-doesn’t work like it used to.”

“Huh.” Han turns it over in his fingers. “And how is this useful to me if—when—I win?”

“It’s the key to my heart,” DJ says. He grins broadly at Han’s flustered expression.

“Just kidding. It’s got a lot of uses, but mainly it hacks into most self-help fuel dispensers, so you won’t have to pay. But it only works once on every d-dispenser. Just so you know.”

Han nods, trying not to dwell too long on his first answer.

DJ taps the stack of cards on the table. “Shall we?”

* * *

Okay, flyboy, you’ve revealed your numbers. Let’s see if you can be overridden.

_They start their game. Han asks him to explain the basics of slicing—he’s known plenty of code breakers in his time, he says, each one more cunning than the next, but he’s never been quite sure what it is they do. DJ obliges. Their glasses are empty again before long, and Han orders them a third round—then a fourth. DJ feels himself getting tipsy, but notices Han is, too. Notices how when he tries to catch Han’s gaze he quickly looks away. Begins forcing himself to let it be held. Becomes the one holding it._

_DJ holds his own during the game, but yields a strategic victory to Han, who triumphantly pockets the key and his credits._

_“Better luck next time, kid.” DJ pretends to pout, and Han’s smile turns sympathetic._

_“You wanna go again?”_

_DJ nods._

_“Sure?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“What do you wanna bet?”_

_“If I win…” He runs a long forefinger along the rim of his cup. His eyes flick towards Han’s again. “You have to double my rate for the repairs on the Falcon.”_

_Han raises an eyebrow. “Okay. And if I win?”_

_DJ stares at the label of his beer bottle like a scholar studying the Jedi texts, pretending to think carefully about his next words. He licks his lips, and says, “If you win, you d-d-don’t have to pay me a single unit.” His eyes bore into Han’s. “Whatever you want me to do on the Falcon, I’m all yours.”_

_His eyes dart to Han’s throat as he swallows, then to his eyes. He smiles. A challenge. Han looks flustered. He takes a sip of beer; when he sets down his glass, something cavalier has crept into his manner. He meets DJ’s eyes with newfound intensity, and leans back in his seat, his arms spread. “Let’s go.”_

Game on _._

_As they begin their second play, Han asks him: “So, you’re from Selto-Chime, huh?”_

Here we go. Rags to riches. _Pretending to be engrossed by his cards, DJ replies, “I am.”_

_“Been there once,” Han says. “I liked that city they built all the way down into the canyon. Never seen anything like it.”_

_DJ nods, biting his thumb nail. “Gora. That’s where I was born.” Before Han can ask his next question, he continues, “The canyons are full of gas. They use it for power blasters and stuff. The Empire was only too happy to have us for a colony.” He draws a card and frowns at it._

_“But we were only part of the Empire in name. There were so many who s-s-sympathized with the Rebels… it led to civil war, at one point. Even after Order 66 we were basically a Rebel base.”_

_He can feel Han’s eyes on him, and waits for the inevitable follow-up question: to explain how he supported the Rebels during this trying time, and if he’d like to join him on the Falcon when this is all over. But Han is silent, drinks his beer, and stares at his cards. As they play a few rounds in near silence, DJ begins to panic, seeing the billboards with his face on it, the shared penthouse on Coruscant go up in smoke. He clears his throat and says, cheerfully, “You know, there are actually a lot of interesting ways in which you and I overlap.”_

_Han raises his eyebrows, without taking his eyes off his cards. “Is that so?”_

_“Yeah._ _Take our fathers, for example. Your dad was a mechanic here in Coronet City, and my dad was a mechanic in Gora, though we’re both orphans now. We both use a pseudonym in our daily lives… We’re both 5’8” tall…” He trails off, then laughs, feeling suddenly embarrassed and childish. “Well. I must’ve had a list as long as a Gungan’s tongue when I was thirteen.”_

_“Aren’t you something,” Han says. He is smiling, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He takes a sip from his beer. When he speaks again, the playfulness is gone from his voice._

_“I hate to let you down, kid, but I’m not quite the hero you think I am.”_

_“Don’t say that,” DJ protests. “Of course you are.”_ He’s so humble, _he thinks._ I always knew he would be. _He perks up._

_“Hey, you know what I had right next to my bed as a kid? Data tapes with reports of the Battle of S-S-Scarif, Endor… Many’s the night I stayed up with my eyes open and my mouth open watching your escapades. I always knew I wanted to be you, growing up.”_

_Han rolls his eyes. “They’re all hot air, you know. Rebel propaganda.”_

_“Yeah, course they are,” DJ says, trying his best to keep a neutral expression. He feels apprehensive all of a sudden. Han Solo’s cynic remarks are his trademark, sure, but there seems to be an underlying intensity to his words that he can’t quite put his finger on._

_They come to their final hand of the round. DJ grimaces at his cards, then quickly pulls his face back into a neutral expression, orchestrating his responses with a finesse he normally reserves for delicate procedures like bio-hexacryption._

_Han lays his cards out on the table, with only a hint of his usual cockiness._

_“Twenty-one.” He looks at DJ, who sighs as if in resignation, then lays his cards down, too._

* * *

“Twenty-three.”

Han blinks in surprise. DJ’s sullenness evaporates instantly, and he grins, his self-satisfaction glowing from him like heat coils in a podracer engine. Han finds himself at a loss for words.

“How did you—I thought—”

“Attitude is everything, Han. I thought y-y- _you_ of all people would know that.” Smiling, DJ begins to gather up the cards, nonchalantly shuffling them with his long fingers.

Taken aback, Han smiles. “I’ve gotta hand it to you, that was some killer bluff. You’ve earned your double rate.” He studies the boy's handsome face. "A slicer, a card sharp, _and_ a looker. You're a triple threat, you know that?"

Smiling coyly, DJ puts the cards away, then rests his chin in his hands. “Aren’t you sad you lost?”

Han rubs the back of his neck. “No. Not _used_ to it, is all. I don’t like losing money.”

DJ lays his forearms on the table and leans forward. “And if you hadn’t? What would you have had me do?”

His ears are filled with the husky voice; his eyes imagine the light in those eyes, that glitter of light, glazing over; his skin heats in response to the closeness of the tanned, slim fingers to his own. He finds the kid so intensely sexy he almost can't look him in the eye. The memory of Leia’s hand rests on his shoulder; he shakes it off and leans in, incrementally. “I would’ve figured something out. There’s always something to do on the Falcon.”

“Oh, yeah?” DJ extends one finger to run over the back of Han’s hand. Han swallows; his throat feels very dry. 

“I’d—I’d want to see what else those fingers can do.”

“Hmm.” DJ smiles, a rock-lion homing in on its prey. Han forces himself to meet his eyes, and blushes, and in that moment he knows he’s going to do it. Yes, there will be a cost. But he’s never been that good at calculating risks, only at taking them.

Someone roars with laughter at the table next to them, startling them both. DJ retracts his hand.

“Where are you staying?” Han asks.

“Wherever the job takes me,” DJ says. “I’m sleeping in the backroom of the workshop at the moment.” He’s looking at his hands, then looks up at Han through his eyelashes.

“You?”

* * *

_The lanterns lining the road scoop puddles of bright light over them as they walk, and DJ looks down to see their shadows growing and shrinking as they walk. The fresh evening air has sobered him up, and his mind is racing, trying to catch up with the reality of what is happening right now._

_“I’m sorry.” He looks up at Han at the sound of his voice, surprised._

_“Didn’t mean to go all grumpy war vet on you in there,” Han says. He looks tired, as if he has aged years in the past hour. DJ gives him a reassuring smile._

_“It’s okay. I know war isn’t all fun and games, either. But… they make it look so good.” He kicks at a rock with his heavy leather boot._

_“They do,” Han says, grimly._

_DJ reaches out, fingertips searching, grazing the back of his hand, then loosely taking hold of it. Han lets him._

* * *

They tiptoe through the dim corridor of the Falcon, and Han quickly lets DJ into his cabin, where he presses him against the wall as soon as the door closes.

They kiss. Han sinks into it, gratefully, desperately, the voice in his head finally silenced. Want turns to need, and he pulls the boy closer to him, melting into the heat of his body yet shivering from the rough contact, the promise of excitement. DJ runs his hands up into Han’s hair, down his shoulders and up his ribs, tender but firm, and begins to unbutton Han’s shirt. He moans as Han leaves his mouth and begins kissing his neck.

Han steers them both towards the bed, where they quickly strip off what remains of their clothes. Han is slower, and as he takes off his second boot and turns around he’s arrested by the sight of DJ, naked, watching him with his hypnotic green eyes while resting his chin on his hand. DJ smiles and holds Han’s gaze, letting himself be admired for a moment longer. Then he pats the bed covers next to him.

“Come here.”

Hungry for his mouth, the smell of his dirt-covered skin, the oily tendrils of his dark hair, Han kisses him again, forcefully. He lies down next to DJ and the boy takes hold of him and begins to stroke him, slowly but steadily. He won’t last long, Han knows; a moan rises from his throat of its own accord.

“One good thing about s-s-slicers,” the kid whispers in his ear. “Clever hands…”

But Han puts his hand on DJ’s to stop him. The boy looks at him; the mischievous twinkle is gone.

“What do you want me to do?” he whispers.

“I want you inside me,” Han hears himself say, in a voice that doesn’t seem to belong to him, one that pleads and trembles.

“I don’t want to feel anything but you.”

* * *

_He’s surprised; he would’ve thought that Han would want to fuck_ him, _for DJ to serve him, for his pleasure to be paramount. But DJ doesn’t judge. Obligingly, he kneels down between Han’s legs and gets busy. With each lick of his tongue he imagines a stone slowly being worn down by water._ Do not mess this up, _he tells himself._ If Han Solo wants you to fuck him good, you fuck him good.

 _He angles his hips and falls into a rhythm, enjoying the smooth undulation of his hips like waves crashing against a rock; he closes his eyes—_ it’s so good— _but forces himself to open them again and pay attention to Han’s moans. When he feels ready, he slows down, adjusts his position, and plunges in even deeper than before. Bullseye._

* * *

The pain is worse than he remembers. Han wants to cry out for mercy, but his pride is quick to rebel, so he closes his eyes and tries to ride the waves of it. Pain is all he will allow himself; it’s the only feeling he can welcome right now. Nothing is closer to ecstasy than pain, and at the same time, nothing is so alien to it.

DJ begins to move and Han begins to love the pain, the punishing, his body twisting, everything about him quivering: his knees, his lower belly, his buttocks; his heart, his dispersed spirit. As he slides towards his own orgasm, everything else recedes into the distance, blood buzzes in his ears, and between the waves of pain he feels a semblance of peace, softening the pain’s ragged edges.

DJ grunts, pushes deeper, and pleasure rushes in unexpectedly, suddenly; his brain short-circuits and everything goes blank for a moment. Han feels rather than hears himself cry out and he collapses onto the pillow; seconds later, he feels DJ go slack on top of him. For a while they lie there, beached, covered in sweat, catching their breath. Slowly, Han drifts back into his body, realising again where he is: the familiar strip of light coming from under the door, the stale cabin air, the procession of beeps. The cabin seems somehow darker than before.

Next to him, DJ runs a hand through his hair and blows out his cheeks. Han remembers now, how he begged, and shame and repulsion form a cold stone in his stomach, weighing him down until he feels unable to move. He imagines his body dissolving into the darkness, and he starts to feel woozy, as if he’s got hibernation sickness again. 

Carbonite. Leia.

_What have I done?_

It isn’t until DJ touches his hand that he drops back into himself. He looks aside at the contours of the boy’s face.

“Everything okay?”

Han turns his head to look at the ceiling again. “I just cheated on my wife,” he says, flatly. “And I swore I’d never. My word of honour.”

DJ says, “I n-never thought you were the marrying kind, anyway.”

Disconcerted, Han gives him a sideways look. _The illusions this kid has about me…_

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, fighting evil and being a stay-at-home dad don’t exactly go together, do they?”

Han frowns. The kid has put his finger exactly on what’s bothering him, only when he says it, it sounds incredibly reductive.

He puts his arms behind his head. Next to him, DJ does the same. Again, he has the uncanny feeling of looking at a younger version of himself, and this time, it gives him goosebumps. He remembers what the kid said to him in the bar. _I always knew I wanted to be you, growing up._

“I can’t figure it out,” he says.

DJ turns to him. “What’s that?”

“Can’t figure if you wanna be _with_ me, or you wanna _be_ me.”

The boy is silent. He fidgets, until he eventually sits up and says, “I wish you’d take me with you.”

Han looks at him. “What do you mean, take you with me?”

“Let me be your sidekick.”

“ _Sidekick?_ ”

“So you can see firsthand that I’ve got grit, and intelligence, and I can hold my own in a fight.”

“In a—” Han stops short, shaking his head.

“What am I supposed to say to that?” The anger he’s feeling for himself boils over, now aimed at the kid. “You think I go round the galaxy beating up Mandalorians, or something?”

Edgily, DJ says, “Sometimes people take me for a numbskull, since I look kind of shabby, but I’ve always thought of myself as just a rung down from the Rebels. And I was hoping I could show you how s-s-special I am. I honestly believe I’m destined for great things. I’ve got qualities that don’t shine through right at the beginning. But if you give me a chance, I’ll get the job done, I guarantee you that.” He pauses. “You see what I’ve done on the Falcon.”

Han sits up and rubs his eyes, uncomprehending. “You thought you’d get me into bed and I’d offer you a job, is that it?”

The kid shrugs, looks at his black-rimmed fingernails. “You’re my hero,” he says. “I wanna join the Rebels, like you did.”

“Except the Rebels don’t exist any more, kid.” Han feels suddenly tired. “And besides, you think they had all the answers? The galaxy ain’t black and white like that. You think Darth Vader’s a villain? He wasn’t born Darth Vader, you know. Like every kid growing up in the Galactic Empire he believed there were evil Jedi rebels from some desert shithole who were gonna come bomb his parents. He doesn’t get up every morning thinking he’s gonna destroy the galaxy; he gets up thinking he’s gonna save it.”

DJ stares at him, uncomprehending.

“I know things you don’t know, kid. You can’t unite a whole galaxy and not expect resistance. Nor should you want to,” he adds.

“So you think there’ll be a war again? Soon?”

Han shrugs. “The Empire was oppressive and corrupt, but stable. Now we’re in for an endless string of coups and wars and chaos.”

DJ remains quiet. He feels a quiet triumph at having shut the kid up, even as he feels guilty for shattering his illusions.

“It’s simple politics, kid. The Rebels wanted fairness, but they don’t want grandeur. There’s a power vacuum, and it’s growing. Somebody’ll be along to fill it soon, mark my words. Good guys and bad guys – they’re made-up words. There’s a million different shades of grey. Including the Rebels. Including the Republic.”

He lets out a long sigh.

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t do the right thing, or take any chance you can get to get out of this hole. Just… think for yourself. What’s in it for you. Don’t let them take advantage of your talents.”

DJ frowns. “Who’s them?”

“Everyone. Anyone. Here on Corellia—where I’m from—that’s all they see. Where you can be put to use. Nobody cares what goes on in your brain. We got all that ‘The Empire can’t do it without you’ shit spoon-fed to us every day. The Alliance did the same to the planets they controlled. ‘A better tomorrow, with _your_ help’—remember that one? We get so stuck thinking about who’s good and who’s bad, and stop thinking _why_ we think some things are bad and some are good. I still think the Jedi Order is hokey—and my _brother-in-law_ is one. Do I think we should base a government on this so-called religion? One that’s so strict it easily pushes people to join the Dark Side? Hell, no. I know it seems like the Rebels were paragons of justice,” he goes on. “But they also killed to get where they are now. It’s always been that way, will always be that way. I’ve served both, and my advice to you, don’t join any of them.”

When DJ speaks up again, he sounds crestfallen, and quite angry.

“So, you’re saying there’s no future for me.”

“I didn’t—all I’m saying is, lose your illusions, kid. Stay free. Think for yourself. Don’t rely on me to—”

“I won’t. I don’t need you. I got my keys, and I got confidence, and I got an appetite for greater things. I hoped if I joined up with you it’d get me that much closer to them.”

Han looks at him, feeling truly sorry; yet the boy’s neediness repulses him, reminds him of his own when he was that age. He says, “I can’t help you there. DJ, I can’t. I have a family. I have a duty to them.”

“Used to be nobody could lay a claim on Han Solo,” the kid says, sulkily.

“And now you think otherwise?” Angered, Han raises himself up on one elbow. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. The Empire is gone, kid. The Rebels are gone. There’s no more greater good for you to die for.”

DJ takes his hand, his eyes big and pleading now. “But—"

“No.” Han wrings himself loose. “You’re gonna have to find your own way, kid. We all do. It’s a new dawn, a new era.” Leia’s words.

DJ turns abruptly and begins to dress. Han watches him. _Poor kid_ , he thinks, _but he needs to know the truth._

“I’ll give you your double wages.” He takes his wallet from his pants on the floor and hands DJ the credits, who pockets them without a word. He looks at Han, his eyes fierce and desperate.

“They don’t have to know,” he tries, one last time. “We can just—”

“Stop talking,” Han snaps. “I said we’re done. You have to understand.” Then, softer, “I’m sorry, kid.”

The boy curls his lip. Then, without another word, he takes his bag and leaves.

Han lies back down on the bed and listens to the inner workings of the Falcon, as familiar to him as his own body’s machinations. His mind races, conjuring up every possible scenario of what his return will look like, and how Leia will respond if— _when—_ she finds out. At length, he drifts off to sleep again.

He dreams he’s talking to Leia on his comlink. “I’ll come home,” he says. “I’ll come back to you. I swear it.” Her reply is garbled, distorted, and he can’t make out what she’s saying. The dream changes. He sees Leia, standing on the steps of Hanna City hall in her wedding dress. He’s there too, in his wedding suit. Filled with love and affection for her, he wants to lean in close to kiss her, but he can’t seem to move. She looks at him with derision. He looks at her helplessly; he can’t seem to find his voice. She turns around and goes inside while he stands there, his hands open and pleading in front of him, still like a statue, trapped in helpless, immovable silence once again. Ignored by the people it serves to remind that there was once such a person, even if nobody alive remembers him.

He wakes up, showers and gets dressed in clothes that feel like they belong to a different man.

* * *

_So much for a Rebel hero—going home to his wife and kids. He can’t believe it. Didn’t he notice how skilled he is—at sabacc, in bed, in the workshop?_ A triple threat, he called me. After a fuck like that, how could he not have fallen in love with me?

_Weak. Pathetic. He’ll make his way in the galaxy without anything tying him down. If things are as chaotic as Han said they are, he’d better keep his eyes peeled for the next big thing that comes along._

_The next day, DJ hides in the back room until he sees Han leave. He watches as he steps out of the Falcon, looking worse for the wear, leading Mantgood to crack a joke about “sowing his wild oats”. When they walk out of the hangar together, DJ leaves his post and climbs on board._

_He’s spent the rest of the night dreaming up ways to hack the Millennium Falcon. The possibilities are endless, really, but it has to be sneaky, so sneaky that neither Han nor Mantgood will be able to detect his handiwork while the Falcon is still in the workshop. The easiest thing to do would be to scramble the clearance codes—they wouldn’t think to re-check those, with only Han, Chewbacca and Emil knowing she’s here. But the moment she’s back up in the air, it’ll be open season for anyone who’d like a piece of her._

_He sits down in the co-pilot’s seat and tugs a K-41 off of his necklace, pushing it into the slot. He takes a deep breath. Even when non-active, the cockpit is alive with beeps, buzzes, blinking lights and buttons, twinkling and glowing like the stars themselves. DJ stares at the board computer, impenetrable to anyone but him—a frontier not even Han Solo can conquer. He smiles wryly, thinking how many times he’s sat here pretending to fly the Falcon, not knowing all he does now._

_He pulls the key back out and hooks it on the string again. He stands up, rummages in his coat pocket, and takes out the sabacc cards, leaving them on the seat before walking out._

* * *

No matter how many times he tells himself that she betrayed, him too, by setting him on a course and convincing him it was the one he’d dreamt of—by convincing him that he should be something he’s not—he knows it doesn’t hold a candle to what he’s done to her now.

She’ll find out what he did, somehow. She’ll know the worst side of him, and she’ll despise him. Nothing he can ever say will change that. But what’s worse is that she’ll wonder why, and the wonder will cause her pain. Betrayal can never be redeemed; it carries love into pain’s darkest regions.

He traces out the constellations that have been his lifelong companions—reliable and unchanging, fixed in place no matter who else comes or goes, or how many years pass, or how many tragedies and joys occur within their vast expanse. Neither war nor peace are elements of the firmament. In the end, the stars are cold beings, closer to diamonds than to lovers. Still, this morning, they seem to him to shine with mercy. 

With Corellia rapidly receding behind him, vision and memory begin to unreel, thoughts of hot skin and _clever hands_ as the starry landscape unravels through his front window. He breaks out in a cold sweat; now his body is in bed, in the dark, sweaty and rapidly cooling; now boxed in, conscious but immobile, somehow still alive in the carbonite mold; now squeezed into the crevice between two containers, watching the Corellian police officers chase Qi'ra, who always knew how to create a diversion to get him out of a fix, and here is the solitary form of his body, shivering, leaning back in the snug interior of the cockpit, white-knuckled hands clenching the controls sending him forward towards the gleaming lakes of Chandrila, across the star-scattered black.

Han puts his ship on autopilot, and goes to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. After drying himself off, he looks at himself in the mirror.

He will try to reorient himself, there being nothing else to do. There must be some way he can make it right. He will live with his hunger, and try to be the man Leia wants him to. If she’ll play the loving wife, he will play the faithful man.

* * *

Emil Mantgood wonders why his new code breaker suddenly acts sullen and rude when he used to be all smiles and courteousness. Seems there’s no question he can ask him without seeing the kid roll his eyes or reply with a sarcastic remark. The job is finished, quicker than he thought—the kid estimated two weeks ought to do it, and he’s done it in one and a half—and he feels relief prick the back of his neck when he watches him shoulder his bag and slump away, his leather coat trailing on the ground behind him.

He shakes his head when he tells Mira about it at dinner. “Never did figure him out. Seemed gung ho at the start, but… you just can’t tell with these youngsters. Something more interesting comes up, they’re off quicker than you can say Midichloridian.” He pauses to chew a particularly tough piece of Bantha meat, then swallows it laboriously.

“I didn’t like the look of him,” Mira says. “Something shifty about him. Are you sure you should’ve put him on the security systems?”

“Hey, hey. I checked out his work, thoroughly, and I’ll have you know he did a fine job. A damn fine job. Couldn’t find anything wrong with it.” Though he puts on a confident front, Emil wonders if he should check again. He shrugs, and stabs another forkful of Bantha into his mouth.

“Well, that’s the last we’ve seen of him, at least. Hope he goes to stir up trouble in some other corner of the galaxy.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is the rarest of rarepairs, I know, but hear me out. This fic has been 2 years in the making, since I saw 'Solo' in theatres. It gave me the idea that Han is essentially a war vet; he's lived through child labour, active duty in war zones, and loses the love of his life twice. And when the war against the Empire is over, what becomes of him? What happens between him and Leia that ends up tearing them apart and stops him being a committed husband and father?  
> I also loved Benicio del Toro's character in TLJ (unlike the rest of the film), and I thought a grumpy war vet might just be where he'd get his morally grey ideas from. Plus, I figured a young DJ would look like a young Benicio del Toro, which, if you've seen 'License to Kill', would be hard for anyone to resist ;-)  
> I estimate Han is about 15 years older than DJ, going by the age difference between Harrison and Benicio irl.
> 
> Edit: I know the hyperspace travel times make no sense in this fic.
> 
> Please comment if you enjoyed!


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